Year: 2020

Aerospace company Lockheed Martin says it has successfully completed a crucial test of the Orion spacecraft it is building for the NASA space agency to eventually return astronauts to the moon.The company released video Thursday of its most recent test conducted earlier this month at the company's Waterton Canyon facility near Littleton, Colorado. After takeoff, the Orion must jettison three large service module coverings, known as fairings, designed to protect the spacecraft during the launch. The fairings must come off to lighten the load so the craft can reach space. Lockheed Martin said the test was successful and validated the jettison mechanisms, and will help the company as it builds new versions of the Orion.NASA hopes to launch the Space Launch System on its first test flight as early as 2021. The…

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) chief scientist said Thursday the agency hopes there will be about two billion doses of a vaccine against COVID-19 by the end of next year that would be reserved for “priority populations.”Speaking at a virtual news conference in Geneva, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan told reporters, “It’s a big ‘if’ because we don’t have any vaccine that’s proven.”She said she is encouraged by the number of possible vaccines currently being tested and hoped at least one or two would prove ready for use by next year.Swaminathan said that the WHO recommends immunizing people at risk first, including the elderly and those with underlying conditions like diabetes or respiratory disease, as well as key workers. But she said countries must come to a consensus on which populations would be…

Researchers say they have determined a mystery fossil discovered in Antarctica in 2011 is a large egg, possibly laid by an ancient aquatic reptile.Science publication Inverse reports that since the fossil was discovered, researchers referred to it as the "thing," because they could not classify it. They compared it to a deflated American football — oval in shape, about 28 centimeters long and 18 centimeters wide.In a study published Wednesday in the science journal Nature, researchers from the University of Texas at Austin used microscopic analysis to confirm that the fossil is indeed an ancient egg.An illustration of a marine reptile and its fossil egg, found in Antarctica, are seen in this handout obtained by Reuters on June 16, 2020. (University of Chile/Handout via Reuters)They analyzed the body size of…

New Zealand on Thursday reported its third confirmed coronavirus case this week, a development that has prompted the government to further restrict its quarantine rules for those entering the country after it had declared local transmission of the virus eradicated.All three cases involve people who flew to New Zealand from elsewhere in the world, the latest coming from Pakistan. The man is in quarantine.Authorities are working to trace those who may have come into contact with the man and two women who flew from Britain and tested positive after being permitted to leave their quarantine early to see an ill relative.There are worries about rising case counts in other parts of the world.India reported 12,881 new confirmed cases Thursday, the highest one-day increase it has seen during the pandemic.  The…

A genetic analysis of COVID-19 patients suggests that blood type might influence whether someone develops severe disease. Scientists who compared the genes of thousands of patients in Europe found that those who had Type A blood were more likely to have severe disease while those with Type O were less likely. Wednesday's report in the New England Journal of Medicine does not prove a blood type connection, but it does confirm a previous report from China of such a link. "Most of us discounted it because it was a very crude study," Dr. Parameswar Hari, a blood specialist at the Medical College of Wisconsin, said of the report from China. With the new work, "now I believe it," he said. "It could be very important." Other scientists urged caution.  …

The joint Europe and U.S. Solar Orbiter spacecraft has made its first close approach to the Sun, getting as close as 77 million kilometers and taking the closest images of the sun ever captured.The collaboration between the the U.S. space agency, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), began in February when the orbiter was launched from from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The orbiter is designed to give close-up views of the Sun's polar regions and observe its magnetic activity for the first time.ESA and NASA scientists say on Monday the orbiter made its first close approach to the Sun at around 77 million kilometers, about half the distance between Earth and the star. The researchers used the flyby to test the spacecraft's ten science instruments, including six telescopes.The space…

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A cheap and widely available steroid drug has shown it can save the lives of the most seriously ill COVID-19 patients, British researchers said Tuesday. Scientists called the use of dexamethasone, normally used to reduce inflammation in patients with arthritis and other diseases, a "major breakthrough" in the treatment of patients infected by the coronavirus who have been hospitalized and needed the use of a ventilator or supplemental oxygen. Researchers at the University of Oxford said that a study of more than 6,400 patients — a third of whom were administered the drug and two-thirds of whom were not — showed that use of the drug was particularly beneficial for the most seriously ill patients but did not appear to help less ill patients. A pharmacist holds a box of dexamethasone tablets at…

A study by researchers at Britain’s University of Nottingham published this week suggests there could be more than 30 intelligent civilizations in our galaxy.The study, published Monday in the Astrophysical Journal, uses a calculation based on how long it took advanced life to develop on Earth – about five billion years ago - and applied it to the known galaxy.  Lead researcher on the study, University of Nottingham Astrophysics Professor Christopher Conselice, says they came by their number assuming it would take just as long for life to develop on other planets. “The idea is looking at evolution, but on a cosmic scale. We call this calculation the Astrobiological Copernican Limit.”First author on the study and Assistant Engineering Professor Tom Westby says previous methods for estimating the number of intelligent…

Researchers in England say they have the first evidence that a drug can improve COVID-19 survival: A cheap, widely available steroid called dexamethasone reduced deaths by up to one third in severely ill hospitalized patients.   Results were announced Tuesday and researchers said they would publish them soon. The study is a large, strict test that randomly assigned 2,104 patients to get the drug and compared them with 4,321 patients getting only usual care. The drug was given either orally or through an IV. After 28 days, it had reduced deaths by 35% in patients who needed treatment with breathing machines and by 20% in those only needing supplemental oxygen. It did not appear to help less ill patients. "This is an extremely welcome result," one study leader, Peter Horby…

An investigation conducted on behalf of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has found that agency leaders violated NOAA’s own scientific integrity policy in releasing a statement last year contradicting their own forecasters and supporting U.S. President Trump’s false assertion about the path of Hurricane Dorian last year.NOAA is the agency that includes the U.S. National Weather Service.From his Twitter feed Sept. 1, Trump wrote that Hurricane Dorian, a storm that at that time was approaching the U.S. southeast coast, would hit Alabama “harder than anticipated.” A few minutes later, the National Weather Service office in Birmingham, Ala., posted from its Twitter account “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane Dorian will be felt across Alabama.”Alabama was not struck by the hurricane.The…

U.S. regulators on Monday revoked emergency authorization for malaria drugs promoted by President Donald Trump for treating COVID-19 amid growing evidence they don't work and could cause deadly side effects. The Food and Drug Administration said the drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are unlikely to be effective in treating the coronavirus. Citing reports of heart complications, the FDA said the drugs' unproven benefits "do not outweigh the known and potential risks." The decades-old drugs, also prescribed for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, can cause heart rhythm problems, severely low blood pressure and muscle or nerve damage. The move means that shipments of the drugs obtained by the federal government will no longer be distributed to state and local health authorities for use against the coronavirus. The drugs are still available for alternate…

Near the southern Vietnam beaches filled with kite surfers and mud baths, there sits a hydropower plant called Da Mi. It is no longer just generating power from dams and falling water, however. Crews added solar panels to the reservoir last year, creating what the Asian Development Bank called the first large floating solar project in Southeast Asia. With the project and others like it, sunny Vietnam has the region’s largest installed capacity of solar power. Its ambitions to move to solar and away from coal was stymied by one issue for years, though. After companies installed panels to suck up power from the sun, they sold the energy to the state utility, without a way to push it directly to customers like other companies. That is about to change. Hanoi has…

How accurate are the coronavirus tests used in the U.S.? Months into the outbreak, no one really knows how well many of the screening tests work, and experts at top medical centers say it is time to do the studies to find out. When the new virus began spreading, the Food and Drug Administration used its emergency powers to OK scores of quickly devised tests, based mainly on a small number of lab studies showing they could successfully detect the virus. That’s very different from the large patient studies that can take weeks or months, which experts say are needed to provide a true sense of testing accuracy. The FDA’s speedy response came after it was initially criticized for delaying the launch of new tests during a crisis and after the Centers for Disease…

The World Health Organization says lessons learned from previous outbreaks of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo and effective therapeutics will allow it to more quickly contain a new outbreak of the deadly disease in Equateur Province.U.N. health officials report there is no link between the Ebola outbreak declared June 1 in Mbandaka, Equateur Province, and the epidemic, which broke out nearly two years ago in DR Congo’s North Kivu and Ituri provinces.      They say the experience gained, however, and lessons learned from tackling this deadly disease in eastern DRC will help them to more quickly stop the spread of the virus in Equateur Province in the western part of the country.   WHO Emergency Operations Manager Michel Yao says the World Health Organization has more than…

A new study based on fossilized footprints suggests a prehistoric relative of modern crocodiles walked on two hind legs. The study, published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports, describes how ancient fossilized footprints discovered in South Korea had originally been thought to belong to a pterosaur — a flying dinosaur — that had been walking on two legs. But further analysis of the prints suggests that they actually belonged to a bipedal crocodile, a creature that walked on two legs because it was semi-adapted to land. This is the first evidence from this time period of a bipedal crocodylomorph, a branching, diverse group of animals that includes crocodilians and their extinct relatives. The researchers named the new species Batrachopus grandis.  The footprints were 18 to 24 centimeters long, suggesting that the creatures’ bodies were almost 3 meters long. They seem to have been left only by the back limbs, showing a clear heel-to-toe walking pattern. The well-preserved fossils, discovered in South Korea's Jinju Formation, date to the lower Cretaceous…

The Trump administration Friday finalized a regulation that overturns Obama-era protections for transgender people against sex discrimination in health care. The policy shift, long sought by the president's religious and socially conservative supporters, defines gender as a person's biological sex. The Obama regulation defined gender as a person's internal sense of being male, female, neither or a combination. LGBTQ groups say explicit protections are needed for people seeking sex-reassignment treatment, and even for transgender people who need medical care for common conditions such as diabetes or heart problems. Behind the dispute over legal rights is a medically recognized condition called "gender dysphoria" — discomfort or distress caused by a discrepancy between the gender that a person identifies as and the gender at birth. Consequences can include severe depression. Treatment can range from sex-reassignment…

Survivors of COVID-19 are donating their blood plasma in droves in hopes it helps other patients recover from the coronavirus. And while the jury's still out, now scientists are testing if the donations might also prevent infection in the first place.   Thousands of coronavirus patients in hospitals around the world have been treated with so-called convalescent plasma  — including more than 20,000 in the U.S. — with little solid evidence so far that it makes a difference. One recent study from China was unclear while another from New York offered a hint of benefit. "We have glimmers of hope," said Dr. Shmuel Shoham of Johns Hopkins University. With more rigorous testing of plasma treatment underway, Shoham is launching a nationwide study asking the next logical question: Could giving survivors…

The U.S National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports global temperatures for the month of May 2020 are tied with May 2016 as the warmest on record.In its monthly Global Climate Report released this week, NOAA said the 10 warmest Mays – in terms of land and ocean surface temperatures - in the 141 years since records have been kept, have occurred since 1998. The report also says the last seven Mays, dating back to 2014, have been the warmest on record.  NOAA says last month marked the 44th consecutive May, and the 425th consecutive month in which temperatures were higher than at this time a century ago.The agency reports the areas with the biggest departures from average temperatures included northern and southeastern Asia, northern Africa, Alaska, the southwest contiguous…

The ongoing separatist conflict in Cameroon’s western regions has created a growing humanitarian emergency that has affected close to two million people.  Humanitarian experts say those displaced by the fighting need help resettling, but also psychological support.  A clinic in Cameroon’s capital provides rare trauma therapy for those affected, as Moki Edwin Kindzeka narrates in this report by Anne Nzouankeu in Yaoundé. ...

India reported nearly 11,000 new cases of COVID-19 in a 24-hour period Friday. The surge of 10,956 new coronavirus infections puts the massive South Asian nation in fourth place, surpassed only by the U.S., Brazil and Russia in the number of cases. India’s has 297,535 of the world’s total 7.5 million COVID-19 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. is leading the world count of infections with more than two million, Brazil has more than 800,00 and Russia has more than 510,000. Vaccine prospects A U.S. biotechnology company says it will make the first widespread tests of a possible coronavirus vaccine next month.Moderna is working with the U.S. National Institutes of Health in developing a COVID-19 vaccine. The company said Thursday the vaccine trial will begin with 30,000 volunteers. Some will get the actual…